[1]
By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with [2]
In the absence of a mass anti-war, anti-Empire political movement in the US – in the world, in fact – journalism is the next best thing. In the journalism which resists imperialism podcasting is the next best thing; it’s as new to resistance mobilization as drones are to military campaigns. Think of podcasts as remote-guided, multiple sensor, long-range loitering munitions of the information war.
How can it be otherwise when President Vladimir Putin asked President Donald Trump to receive his telephone call on April 29 [3], to “express[…] his sympathy and support… in connection with the assassination attempt against him on April 25’ to add for Trump’s wife “his best wishes and noted her contribution to efforts aimed at facilitating the reunification of Russian and Ukrainian children with their families”; to congratulate Trump for being “right to extend the ceasefire for Iran [to] negotiations a further chance and help stabilise the overall situation”; and to warn “that if the United States and Israel resume military action, this would inevitably lead to extremely adverse consequences not only for Iran and its neighbours, but for the entire international community. He stressed that a ground operation on Iranian territory would be particularly unacceptable and dangerous.”
Over the week that has followed, Trump has dismissed negotiations with Iran; used US naval and air forces against Iran forces and territory in the Strait of Hormuz, breaking the ceasefire; initiated new sanctions against China, Belarus, and Russia “to disrupt procurement networks supporting Iran’s military programs [4]”; ordered escalation of long-range Ukrainian drone strikes against Russian energy infrastructure, and authorized the Pentagon signing of a billion-dollar investment and reward scheme for US companies and Ukrainian drone designers to capitalise on their Russian strikes [5]. This last move, by the way, is a moneymaker devised by Elbridge Colby [6] at the Pentagon [7] and his deputy, Daniel Zimmerman [8], a CIA veteran close to Israel and a protégé of Jared Kushner.
When the evidence of these Trump’s violations had become clear to Putin by May 9, as he celebrated Victory Day, he publicly thanked [9] Trump for the two-day ceasefire on the Ukraine battlefield in demonstrating “respect for our shared victory over Nazism, and clearly humanitarian in nature.” By indirection, Putin also excused Trump’s role in the US and Israeli Air Force bombing and missile attacks to decapitate Iran’s leadership by referring to the assassination of Ali Larijani as his “passing from life [10]” (ушёл из жизни).
Two days later, Putin organised a Kremlin media ceremony to report a successful test launch of the newest of Russia’s nuclear-capable missiles, the 35,000-km range Sarmat. In the Kremlin communiqué, the Russian text reveals [11] Putin declined to address Sergei Victorovich Karakayev, commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces by his rank of colonel general. In the official English translation, the Kremlin reports [12] Putin as calling him “Mr Karakayev”. As Karakayev did, General Staff officers regularly address Putin as Comrade Commander in Chief; Putin does not reciprocate [13].
Announcing the deterrence capability [12] of the Sarmat, Oreshnik, Poseidon, and Burevestnik, is Putin’s advertisement, a substitute for operation – in short, a podcast weapon.
In Bejing, is it otherwise when President Xi Jinping has proclaimed his “Four Propositions”, the first of which is not resisting, not deterring, not combating the Trump empire but co-existing and cooperating with it instead.
“First,”, Xi announced [14] in April,”stay committed to the principle of peaceful co-existence…in the face of a complex and turbulent international landscape, solidarity and cooperation are the only right option. Five years ago, President Xi Jinping put forward the Global Development Initiative. In the years since then, he has successively proposed the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative, and the Global Governance Initiative. As a force for peace, stability and progress in the world, China will continue to work with all countries, including Canada, guided by the four global initiatives, to uphold dialogue and consultation, pursue win-win cooperation, advance the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.”
If ever there was a clearer repudiation of Marxist method, Leninist analysis, and Communist Party mobilization, this from the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party either means everything or it means nothing at all. The same can be interpreted of Xi’s three other “propositions” – the principles of national sovereignty, the principle of rule of international rule of law; and the principle of the “balanced approach to development and security [15]”.
Very clearly now, power, as Mao Tsetung explained it, does not come out of the barrel of a gun (枪杆子里面出政权 [16] ) As chairman of the China’s Central Military Commission and commander-in-chief of the People’s Liberation Army, Xi says he is for not losing power by not fighting foreign adversaries, not losing wars against them. However, Xi is for deterring those of his military subordinates who disagree with him. Xi’s gun has several barrels for domestic use only; only one of them is a pistol shot from the back of the head.
In the new podcast with Nima Alkhorshid aired on Tuesday afternoon Moscow time, morning New York time, the policy of the Five Noes, Putin’s and Xi’s, are discussed to show what will happen as Trump arrives to meet Xi in Beijing, and Putin plans his visit to Xi to follow. Trump’s visit of May 13-15 has forced Putin’s planned arrival on May 18 to be postponed [17].
Click to listen or view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTmm2b60yNM [18]
[19]Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTmm2b60yNM [18]
[20]President Trump speaking in the Oval Office at the Maternal Healthcare Event, May 12, 2026 [21]. In the podcast I misreported the title of the event as “Medical Healthcare”. The display of Trump’s drooping mouth indicates continuing neurological symptoms: https://www.news18.com/ [22]
[23]Source: https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/transcript/donald-trump-remarks-maternal-healthcare-oval-office-may-11-2026/ [24]
Here are verbatim excerpts of Trump’s responses in the press question-and-answer session [24] on the current negotiations with Iran.
“Question: Mr. President, you mentioned that you’re going to be meeting with the generals on Iran. You rejected a deal from Iran over the weekend. Can you tell us anything about that proposal? And what, if any, effort will be made to break this down?
Donald Trump: It was just unacceptable. You know, a lot of people said, well, does he have a plan? Yeah, of course, I do have a plan. I have the best plan ever. I mean, Iran has been defeated militarily totally. Uh, they have a little left. They probably built up during this period of time. We’ll knock that out in about a day, but I have a plan. You know what that is, a very simple plan. I don’t know why you don’t say it like it is. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. They’re very dangerous. They’re very volatile. It’s a terrible thing that’s happened over there. They’ve killed 42,000 people, uh, in the last two months, 42,000. At least that’s what we know of, 42,000 people. They killed numerous people over the last week, but they killed 42,000 people a month ago, a month and a half ago. They were unarmed protesters, not at all violent protesters and they started taking them out, shooting them. So we’re not going to let them — that’s the plan. You know, people say, what’s the plan? The plan is very simple. The blockade, first of all, was a part of military genius, just like Venezuela was military genius. We have the greatest military in the world, by far, and we’re stocked up with great ammunition. We have much better stuff than we did two months ago when we first did the attack, which knocked them for a loop.
But, uh, very simple, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. They can’t have it. And if they did have it, the Middle East would be gone, Israel would be gone, and they’d hit Europe probably next. We’re doing this service to the world and this has gone on for 47 years. Other presidents and leaders of other countries that have the power should have done it, but they didn’t do it. But it’s a very simple plan, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, and they won’t have a nuclear weapon.
And they didn’t — and they didn’t want to go that far. If you — if you can believe it, they didn’t — how stupid? Are they stupid people? They didn’t want to believe it. They think that, well, I’ll get tired of this or I’ll get bored, or I’ll have some pressure. But there’s no pressure. There’s no pressure at all. We’re going to have a complete victory. We’ve already, in theory, had a complete victory from the military standpoint. Their military — look, their Navy is dead. They have 150 — they had 159 ships. Right now they have zero, other than little speedboats that go around that got taken out, eight a day by us. They have no air force.
They have no anti-aircraft. Now, they probably put the shoulder jobs on into service over the last three weeks, probably. But essentially, they have no anti-aircraft, they have no radar. And frankly, their leaders have been killed at the first level, second level and half of the third level. And then they come back and they want to negotiate and they give us a stupid — it’s a stupid proposal.
And nobody would take it. Although Obama would have taken it. Biden would have taken it. What they took it was far worse, so we stopped them twice. We stopped them when I terminated the worst deal probably ever made in the history of our country in terms of defense. That was the Iran nuclear deal by Barack — penned by Barack Hussein Obama.
That would have given Iran a nuclear weapon within a year. They would have had it years ago. I terminated that in my first term. And then when that beautiful plane right there hit them hard, we really hit them hard and they told me, I want to just tell you this because they like to say, oh, well, maybe it wasn’t that hard.
Iran told me very strongly because they intend to give us the nuclear dust, as I call it. It’s easier than talking about other terms because it’s a term everyone — but the nuclear dust, which is what we hit.
They told me, number one, you’re getting it, but you’re going to have to take it out, because the site was so obliterated that there’s only one or two countries in the world that could get it. It’s so deep and got hit so hard that there’s no — the way they have the equipment to move it. You and China are the only two countries in the world that could take it out.
So, we talked about it, and they said you’ll have to take it out because we — we don’t have the capability of doing it. So, for those people that like to say that those great pilots in those great planes — where we just ordered 22 more of them, new and improved, that those great pilots didn’t do their job. They did their job at 1:00 in the morning with no moon, no light, no nothing. Every single bomb hit its targets. And then, as you know, we shot some incredible things. There’s things that nobody else has. Nobody has a military like we have. We shot the Tomahawks from a submarine 200 miles away and that went on top of it. But every one of those — including the Tomahawks, every one of those weapons and — and shots hit perfectly.
And they said to me — just to put it on the record, they said to me there are only two countries in the entire world that could ever get that stuff out of there, because we don’t have the equipment and nobody else, they said China and the United States. So, I just want to let you know those pilots did an unbelievable job, very dangerous job at 1:00 in the morning. Think of it, no — no moon, no nothing. We had no light purposely. And every single one of those bombs went right down an air chute in a granite mountain and exploded. And they are unable to get it even if they wanted to. But we’re not going to take a chance, so that’s part of the deal.
Question: So, sir — [Inaudible] — agreed to allow the removal of all their enriched uranium?
Donald Trump: Yeah. Yeah. Well, they did two days ago. I — they didn’t — ok? They did two days ago. They said you’re going to have to take it. We were going to go with them, but they changed their mind because they didn’t put it in the paper. So, when they sent us this document that we waited four days for they should have taken ten minutes to do, rat — it’s — look, very simple. We get that. They guarantee no nuclear weapons for a very long period of time and a couple of other minor things. But they just can’t get there. So —
They agree with us and then they take it back.Like, they — they said to us that it was so badly — obliterated was the word they actually used. That was my original word. Then it got challenged by some of the fake news. But — and it wasn’t challenged with any knowledge. It was just challenged, like they were hoping that this wouldn’t have been so successful. No, it was obliterated. We have the greatest military in the world. I built it largely in my first term. And I didn’t know I’d be using it quite this much in my second term. But very simply, when they say does he have a plan, yeah, I have a plan. The plan is very simple. You know, in war you have to change.
You have to be flexible. You have a lot of plans, but you have to do different plans in different days. But I have a great plan. But the plan is they — they cannot have a nuclear weapon. And they didn’t say that in their letter.
Question: Mr. President, [Inaudible] changes that you’ve talked about in Iran, is this still a leadership that you believe you can negotiate with —
Donald Trump: I think so. Well, you have two. You have the moderates and you have the lunatics. And I think the moderates are more respected. The lunatics want to fight til the end. You know, they’re — there will be a very — it’ll be a very quick fight. But you — I call them — you have — just like our country, we have lunatics too.
We have — I call them lunatics. I call them stupid people, too. But in Iran, they have the moderates. They’re dying to make a deal. And then you have the lunatics. And I guess they’re a little bit afraid of the lunatics. But — and why not? The — the level of ferocity for protests, you know, the — the people are watching it. They want to go out in the streets.”